Easter Bunny Bark

I love Easter baking, perhaps even more than Christmas. Last year I made a white chocolate bark, but I wanted to try dark chocolate this year. My first attempt, with 70% chocolate didn't really work. It was my first attempt at tempering chocolate and I think I melted it too fast and it bloomed. This is where the cocoa butter separates and has a 'white' appearance. In addition, I think the chocolate was just too dark for children to eat. So, this time I went back to my favourite baking chocolate, it's Sainsburys Belgium Dark Cooking Chocolate. It's so nice to work with, and appeals to all tastes when eating.

I have been collecting all the Easter chocs; Cadbury's mini eggs, Smarties mini eggs, Sainsbury's micro mini eggs, Cadbury's Hoppy Bunny bar, Maltesers Bunnies and the Wilton Easter sprinkles, ready for this project. It's sooo tempting to sneak a few!

It's pretty simple to make bark. You melt the chocolate, slowly, trust me, pour it onto a tray lined with parchment paper, add the decorations and then refrigerate to set. After it had hardened, break it up and package it into bags to give as gifts.

If you would like to temper the chocolate to give it that 'crack' as you break it, the BBC Good Food guide to tempering chocolate is really good.

Good luck and happy 'barking'!

BUNNY BARK

I've dabbled with bark before, not very successfully, but it never matters when things go wrong, as long as you can think through how to improve. This is a lesson in life that I emphasise with my students....reviewing your work and seeing how to improve is so valuable.

So this Easter, I saw this cute Bunny Bark made by Kerry Cooks. I knew I had all of the ingredients already in the house, so I had a go. It was as simple as melting the chocolate and sprinkling on the extras - the Cadbury Hoppy Bunny Chocolate bars out at this time of year, the Smarties Mini eggs, and bunny/carrot sprinkles that I bought last week. I didn't add Cadbury Mini Eggs as well, as even I am overloaded with chocolate already, and Easter weekend hasn't even arrived!

In the future I think I would definitely make the effort to temper the chocolate to get that extra crunch when breaking it up, but I didn't this time.

I'm not going to add a specific recipe here as it really is common sense. But so you know, I used 300g Sainsbury's Taste the Difference White Chocolate - a mix of Swiss and Belgium - inadvertentl. Any good quality chocolate will do. If you want it thinner, use less. I poured it into a square tray lined with aluminium foil and then placed the chocolate squares on first, then the mini eggs and then sprinkled the rest. In hindsight, I would leave the chocolate to set a little before adding any of it, as the tiny bunny and carrot sprinkles sunk in a little bit. 

Regardless, it still tastes delicious! The broken pieces packaged into clear cellophane bags makes a lovey Easter gift.

Happy Bunny Barking!

Kris x

UPDATE: Kerry has put this on her blog now - view it here.